Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs • Hacker News Board

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#251

Post by runarberg » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:30 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #107

pretendgeneer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how now is never the right time. It's always just gone or some time soon .

There was a multi-year effort beginning with Trump's election to organize tech workers, and one of the key arguments was that there was a short window of opportunity in which to act, before some combination of automation and changes to the workforce removed the unique leverage tech workers enjoyed. The message was "now is the right time" for maybe three years, and now that ship has sailed. All we're left with is easy…

Labor action is much more about solidarity then leverage. Yes, in modern labor actions leverage is what most organized workplaces use, however, with such low union membership in North America, you really need to build up a movement of solidarity across non-unionized industries.

Seattle actually has a history of this. In 1919 65,000 workers in Seattle went on a general strike to support shipyard workers. I think there are few better cities across America to build up solidarity. Especially now with Starbucks and other service work getting unionized one shop at a time. Class awareness is increasing, we now have labor heroes such as Christian Smalls. We know what is possible.

There might have been leverage back in 2016, but we didn’t have the same labor class awareness and cross industry solidarity. Your ship might have sailed, but there are other ships, and more workers now organizing and taking as we speak.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#252

Post by noahjk » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

eastbound wrote: post #133

ajkjk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so annoying that the vocal commenters on here assume that every engineer agrees with them that working from home is preferable to having an office. Nothing against other people working from home but please keep in mind that people's can differ greatly from your own.

As a software engineer, I needed to meet people for my growth in the start of my career, and I needed to meet people for character development. Old farts complain that younglings are not socially/emotionally independent and apt to talk to their computer all day, but that’s also a recipe for suicide.

While I believe the benefits of being remote outweigh the downfalls, I definitely feel that growth as a professional and as an engineer is stunted by being remote. I miss the days of being able to easily ask questions and collaborate, even with people on different projects or in different departments. That, to me, is the biggest downside

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#253

Post by lettergram » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:42 PM UTC

osigurdson wrote: post #240

lettergram wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol the discussion here is around remote work, I brought up the difficulties managing a remote team. (1) Leadership & management are actually two distinct roles that are often conflated (2) how do you lead a team without talking to them? Your comment is fair-ish, but I think misses the mark. You have to balance touch points and removing blockers, with attitudes like “I want heads down time to work”. In an office you…

Ask your team to do an anonymous, net promoter score for each of the meetings. If you can't prove the claim that productivity is increased by the amount you specify then consider cancelling the meetings.

Net promoter scores wouldn't have any baring on productivity. As an example, often the least enjoyed meetings can be productive (such as telling a person to stop working on their project).

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#254

Post by red-iron-pine » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:47 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #210

osigurdson wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just sounds like the commenter doesn't have a good concept of "why". They are going through the motions, booking meetings etc. but are not really leading anything, just doing stuff.

How are you getting that? Where did they say it wasn't effective project management? They just said it was harder. And it is harder. For example, it's way easier to see when a junior dev is lost when you can see pain in there face from across the office instead of hoping it shows in one of the check-in meetings.

asking simple, low effort questions -- "hey how do I log into [this new system]" -- is as simple as leaning into a room or over a cube, but with remote you have to poke someone.

in person you just drag a laptop over but remote you have a call, share a screen, carve out time. not necessarily more disruptive, but sure feels like more effort, and now involves multiple apps sucking up bandwidth and potentially logging everything you say.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#255

Post by helij » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:49 PM UTC

eastbound wrote: post #133

ajkjk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so annoying that the vocal commenters on here assume that every engineer agrees with them that working from home is preferable to having an office. Nothing against other people working from home but please keep in mind that people's can differ greatly from your own.

As a software engineer, I needed to meet people for my growth in the start of my career, and I needed to meet people for character development. Old farts complain that younglings are not socially/emotionally independent and apt to talk to their computer all day, but that’s also a recipe for suicide.

Counterpoint: I didn't need any of that.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#256

Post by runarberg » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:55 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #219

> to show their frustration with recent layoffs, return-to-office mandates and a lack of action to address the company’s impact on climate change Now one only has to add social justice, marriage equality, immigration policy and saving the whales, and the mission of making it impossible to understand what it is about will be accomplished. Dudes, it's OK to be upset by just RTO, you don't have to bring the whole list e…

Modern labor struggle is social justice. Just see the most successful labor leader in recent years, Christian Smalls, see how he talks, and what he emphasizes. See also various union statements by Starbucks worker’s unions.

Climate change, gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, BLM, #metoo, those are all integral to a modern union. And raising those among your labor concerns has proven to be effective in building up the solidarity required for meaningful action.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#257

Post by runarberg » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:13 PM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #25

olliej wrote: post #9

If only there were some kind of organization employees could belong to that would help counter the asymmetric power of corporations.

The interesting part it isn't even needed for this walk to organise. We don't need unions like we used to, some online admin at most is enough

No, we need them more than we used to.

Back before the National Labor Relations Board unions were unregulated and collective action was unprotected. Unions were more like activist groups (think if BLM had a leadership structure and memberships). During strikes unions had to build solidarity and convince every worker to join. Strikers had to physically prevent scabs from entering the workplace, often with violence. Now it is simply illegal to scab. With today’s militarized police there is no way we could return to the era before NLRB and hope for success.

We can, and we should organize outside of unions, but the goal should ultimately be to form a union, and benefit from all the protections you get from having one.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#258

Post by tjr225 » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:13 PM UTC

worrycue wrote: post #63

x86x87 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has a small window to force the drones back to the office. Once people start having options we're done. WFH will be here to stay.

After they force people back to office then what? It’s not like they won’t leave if they manage to get remote job elsewhere. Frankly, I don’t get this drive to RTO. The only gain is face to face meetings might improve productivity (in some people). The downside is increased pollution due to commuting - even with EVs you are wearing out tires increase the amount of micro plastics in the environment, wearing out their…

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Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#259

Post by RestlessMind » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:13 PM UTC

chadcmulligan wrote: post #35

btbuildem wrote: post #18

Wow, the pro-corp tone in some of the comments is surprising. Software jobs are one of the few remaining ones where we still hold the means of production -- and can withhold them to our leverage. These folks are walking out for the right reasons -- big f-off to RTO, and even if a bit late, the layoffs.

There are so many people that stand to lose if a fully remote work force came to pass. Building management, HR, middle managers, property investors, they're the ones you're hearing I'd guess. Pure software dev jobs are very easy to do remotely, it's not like we spend all day talking to people any way.

> middle managers,

If you think middle managers stand to lose due to remote work, you have no clue why middle managers exist in the first place. Remote work increases the importance of that role, in fact.

> Pure software dev jobs are very easy to do remotely

Have you actually done meaningful software development? For a specific example - designing a complex system is definitely hard to do remotely. Put 3-4 key people in that project in front of a whiteboard and you will get a much better outcome. I have been managing remote teams for >3 years now and have flown in my teams from all over the world to a single location on multiple occasions. Every single time, the feedback was that whiteboard sessions were awesome and helped move the project forward significantly.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#260

Post by RestlessMind » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:16 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #224

ajkjk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so annoying that the vocal commenters on here assume that every engineer agrees with them that working from home is preferable to having an office. Nothing against other people working from home but please keep in mind that people's can differ greatly from your own.

I don't think many of the commenters here assume that at all. It is abundantly clear that working in-office is not threatened - it would be like have been worrying that men would be disenfranchised by women's suffrage. Assuming that in-office work did somehow disappear entirely, then there would also always be the option for WeWork or similar. This is not a zero-sum game. It is possible for everyone to get what they…

> It is possible for everyone to get what they want.

At overall software-industry level? Yes.

At individual company level? It is much better to have uniform policies for the entire org. Either be completely remote, or completely in-office, or if you want hybrid then mandate the days when everyone must be in office.